We’re up against a chronic epidemic: stress. In fact, it’s estimated that 80% or more of doctors’ visits are due to illnesses related to stress. This can come in many different forms. Socioeconomic stress is a real burden for many people, as is the stress of taking care of several generations within a family, or meeting the demands of our jobs. Stress can also come in the form of bad food and poor or inadequate sleep, which send negative signals to the brain that produce stress hormones. That doesn’t mean we’re stuck with stress though. Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I’m joined by my good friend Dr. Rangan Chatterjee to look at the many sides of stress and all the actions we can take to stop it in its tracks. 

Dr. Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential doctors in the UK and wants to change how medicine will be practiced for years to come. He hosts the biggest health podcast in Europe, Feel Better, Live More, which Apple has announced as one of the most downloaded new podcasts of the past year. His first book, How to Make Disease Disappear, is an international bestseller all over the world and has sold over 250,000 copies worldwide in just 18 months. His most recent book, the #1 bestseller, The Stress Solution, tackles what the WHO calls the health epidemic of our time—stress.

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Here are more of the details from our interview: 

-The personal experience that changed Dr. Chatterjee’s approach to practicing medicine (6:22)

-Why Dr. Chatterjee chose to focus on the topic of stress in his latest book, The Stress Solution (15:25)

-The power of identifying if there is a trigger point in your week that leads to the bulk of your stress (19:26)

-How stress affects your physiology and why finding meaning and purpose in your life is so important to your stress resiliency (23:53)

-Managing your mindset as it relates to what you can vs what you cannot control (36:15)

-How lack of downtime contributes to stress, the brain’s default mode network, and our toxic relationship to technology (38:34)

-How to create a morning routine in as little as 5 minutes (48:32)

-Creating new behaviors and habits (55:34)

-The daily gratitude exercise Dr. Chatterjee practices with his family (57:33)

-The importance of touch and intimacy (1:00:37)

Find Dr. Chatterjee online at https://drchatterjee.com/ and follow him on Facebook @DrChatterjee, on Instagram @DrChatterjee, and on Twitter @drchatterjeeuk.